


Brotherhood

by towards



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII
Genre: AU, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-02
Updated: 2015-03-02
Packaged: 2018-03-15 22:35:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3464570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/towards/pseuds/towards
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>DeepGround decided to socialize it's greatest weapons. Genesis Rhapsodos knew them as brothers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Brotherhood

The Rhapsodos family gains two more members one frosty fall evening. Perhaps the handsome price ShinRa was willing to pay to hide their origins was motivation, or perhaps they simply could not bear to cast aside two boys who didn’t have a chance. We already had one, they say to themselves and that appears to be that, and the boys are welcomed with open arms.

Genesis isn’t told much about his new “brothers”. Not where they came from, not why the dark haired one wears bandages, not why the pale haired one is stronger than any child should be. They’re little more than five years old collectively and already there’s something… off about them. Something he can’t quite put his finger on, something his twelve year old mind can’t quite grasp. Something he files away as he turns to his books and his research, pouring himself into that instead of letting his mind linger on the irritation that comes with having to share his parents, his toys, and house with two boys who can’t even stand to be in the same room as him.

They come around. Slowly.

The older one, Weiss, comes into his room like he owns the place one day. Leading the little one by the hand, the two of them gawk at all of his things and say nothing.

"Well?" Genesis is all of twelve and a half and still thinks himself the king of the world, at least within these walls. He has big aspirations, big dreams. He’ll change the world and his parents encourage him every step of the way. He expects a little reproach, after all he’s the older one and isn’t this how it works?

Instead, Weiss looks him dead in the eyes and asks if he wants to play hide and seek.

\- - -

Nero doesn’t talk much for the first year. Weiss does the talking for him, happily demanding or taking whatever the littlest Rhapsodos wants without any prompting. Weiss is rude, Weiss is abrasive, and Weiss is rapidly on his way to becoming the village darling because he manages to be so damn charismatic while doing so. In contrast, Nero doesn’t… really do much of anything, his hands are bandaged tight and he needs Weiss, or his mom, or his dad to do basic things for him. He doesn’t talk to any of them, when he does he mumbles behind his hands and stares at the floor. It looks dumb, he looks dumb. His parents mention that he suffers from extreme photo sensitivity so he doesn’t like to go out in the day, but it’s a fact that he only half paid attention to as he was putting the final touches on his science project.

Eventually Weiss makes friends with the village boys and he goes off for a little while. Angeal is busy and Genesis is stuck with no one to see and nothing to do. He comes across the smallest brother huddled in the corner of the kitchen with his hands over his eyes. The blinds are pulled wide open - an oversight on his parent’s part.

Looks like everyone else stepped out too.

Genesis wavers for a minute. He could, very easily, step back into his room and ignore it. Nero is still more or less an intruder into his house, unwelcome and unwanted in a space that was solely his. But bundled up like that he just looked…

Pathetic.

Sighing, Genesis makes his way over to the window and closes the curtains. The sound of relief that the boy makes may be the loudest he’s ever heard him. A glance over his shoulder confirms that Nero has shifted out from his huddle, now watching him cautiously instead of looking like he’d rather disappear into the floor than endure another minute of that hell.

Genesis grabs a juicebox for himself and the spare comes with it. He hesitates, just for a moment, before crouching down and offering it to him.

There are many things he expected. Nero bolting off for his room. Nero yelling for Weiss. Weiss coming in and demanding to know why Nero’s eyes were so red.

He didn’t expect to be hugged for such a simple, thoughtless act of kindness.

The rest of the summer evenings are spent outside. Weiss wants to know everything and Nero wants to know what Weiss wants to know, and so he and Angeal regale the boys with stories of ghosts and goblins and trees that sport golden fruit. Weiss plays too rough and suddenly the neighborhood kids don’t want to play with him anymore.  
Slowly, slowly, he stops thinking of them as “strangers” and begins thinking of them as “brothers”. Nero attaches himself to Genesis when Weiss isn’t around, listening to Loveless and any poem that Genesis decided to bestow upon him that day. They roughhouse, they play, they cement themselves as family somewhere in the midst of it all.

The boys never do learn how to bond with his parents.

\- - -

He leaves for SOLDIER a little over two years later and bids his adoptive brothers a fond farewell.  
"I’m going to be a hero," he tells them, "just like Sephiroth. I’ll come back more decorated than he is."

Nero and Weiss share an uneasy glance at each other - something he doesn’t quite get, something he suspects they don’t get. But they wave at him as he gets on the bus with Angeal. They wave until he can’t see them anymore, they might wave long afterwards. Their eyesight has always been alarmingly good.  
"You’re looking a little wet there," Angeal bumps his shoulder with his own. "They’ll be fine."

"I’m not worried," but he wipes the dampness in his eyes away and shoves his friend in return.  
They climb the ranks far quicker than they planned. There’s not a man that can stand against him. He meets his hero, challenges him, becomes his friend. It’s all far better than he could have ever dreamed. He goes home after that and tells the boys all about it, yells at Nero for collecting bugs and listens to Weiss tell tall tales about how he’d fought a wolf with his bare hands and won.

He corresponds with his brothers more often than he’d let on. Getting updates from Nero about Weiss, and getting updates from Weiss about whatever was going on around home that didn’t center solely on him.  
We’re going to be there soon. Nero says one day, but that doesn’t make sense because they’re no where near conscription age. Nero’s barely five and Weiss is eight - they’re still just children.

But lo and behold there they are. He thinks. He sees his brothers out of the corner of his eye one day after training and he thinks it’s them, he can’t imagine who else it would be. But they’re gone again and his parents don’t mention anything of it, they say that Nero and Weiss are busy with school and don’t have the time for letters right now.

 

It doesn’t sit well with him.

\- - -

The war with Wutai is brutal and shows no sign of ending. Even with massive loads of Materia, even with SOLDIERs, they’re at a disadvantage. Wutai troops are storming their base and they have no idea what to do about it, there’s just too many.

And then suddenly there isn’t.

Angeal says he thinks he saw the boys on the battlefield but that can’t be because they’re just kids, what would they even be doing here? There are no answers to be found, and when he writes home, Nero answers and says they were there all along.

 

Genesis can’t help but notice how much neater his brother’s handwriting has gotten since the last one… He’d always been clumsy, the bandages on his hands had made it difficult for him to hold a pen and they were just kids so what did he expect? The next one goes back to being a struggle to read and he supposes that maybe, maybe, Nero’d gotten someone to write it down for him.  
Maybe.

Weiss tells him that he’s been having adventures too but they’re confidential to say and something about that unsettles him to his core.

\- - -

Seeing them on leave isn’t really enough. Nero and Weiss shoot up like beanstocks each time he sees them. They get stronger, too. Weiss gives him a punch to the shoulder that actually bruises and Nero’s fast enough to dodge Angeal’s obnoxious hair ruffling. His parents sport nervous looks when they think no one is watching, and rumors in the village are spreading about missing animals and broken bones caused by playing too rough.

His brothers are outcasted for being better than everyone else around them. For being faster, stronger, better looking.

He claps them each on their shoulders, full of confidence and arrogance. “Join SOLDIER.”

Those words he lives to regret.

\- - -

Nero is eleven and Weiss is thirteen when they’re permitted to join. It’s early - far, far too early, but ShinRa may be getting desperate and his brothers ace the entrance exams with flying colors. They come in, full of confidence and pride. Weiss, standing tall - he’s more muscular than most boys his age. Nero, in his shadow, walking just a step behind but every bit the picture of a Rhapsodos. They’re going to be amazing, people say. They’re going to blow everything out of the water.

They’re there for all of an hour. Genesis is giving the tour, but…

They already know the place.

They play along with it well enough, but he knows. They’re turning before he does, they’re not listening to his explanation or his direction. It’s…

He doesn’t have the time to think about it.

"Sephiroth!" Genesis beckons his friend over, jerking his head towards the boys. "Here, come meet my brothers."

His friend does. Opens his mouth, prepares for the greeting - and freezes.

Nero and Weiss do much the same. Recognition, maybe. Being starstruck? But Sephiroth…

"Haven’t I seen you before," he starts, but Nero shrugs noncommittally and turns away and Weiss loudly declares that they’re starving and it’s time to get something to eat.

"They’re not usually like this," Genesis says, more than a little annoyed at their rudeness. Focusing on that instead of the unsettling exchange.

"I could have sworn I’ve seen them in Wutai, and…" Sephiroth pauses, shakes his head. "Nevermind. I’m mistaken. They must be overwhelmed."

They’re not.

He catches up with them at lunch and gives the cold shoulder, to which they merely shrug off.

What they don’t shrug off is the sight of the Department Heads.

He catches Nero shake when his eyes land upon the tall, dark clad stranger seated with them. They say nothing, he and Weiss are suddenly on their feet, leaving half-eaten meals and an unfinished conversation in their wake.

\- - -

They excel in SOLDIER, like he knew they would. They make friends, they climb the ranks. Nero is in the running to be one of the youngest Second Classes ever. At night, somehow, they get into his dorm. He doesn’t understand it, he’s locked the door and windows a thousand times but they’re in there and they stay there until dawn. He thinks.

They’re always gone when he wakes up.

Every now and again they drop off the face of the radar. Nero comes back limping from one such disappearance, wiping a bloody nose and saying absolutely nothing to the prodding. If Genesis looks hard enough he can see a patch of hair missing on his brother’s head but he can’t be sure, it might just be snarls. Nero’s bandages vanish overnight and he sees his brother’s hands for the first time.

"Did you sneak into Midgar to get tattoos,” the Commander asks, utterly incredulous. “You’re twelve. That’s permanent.”

"If it were only that simple," Nero mumbles, and says absolutely nothing more on the subject despite his needling to know more. 

The years that follow are filled with much the same. He watches as the light in Nero’s eyes slowly dies. His brother starts to wear the helmet, starts to cover his face in any way he can. Weiss goes the opposite, wearing less and less of the standard wear as it goes on.

But at night, they still crawl into his room. He grows accustomed (to his chargin, they never leave) to waking up with one on either side.

"What would you do," Nero asks one night, perhaps thinking he’s asleep," if we were monsters?"

"Would you still call yourself our brother?" Weiss asks from the other side.

He gives no response. No indicator that he’d even heard.

Nero’s curls tighter to his side and Weiss mutters something under his breath that he truly doesn’t catch. Nero is fourteen, turning fifteen soon, and he thinks that maybe he should get him a decent present to commemorate the event. To prove that the idea that they could be monsters was preposterous, they were just his stupid, irritating little brothers.

\- - - 

Monster does not begin to cover it. There’s something wrong and Genesis can’t put his finger on what. He can’t… do much of anything now. His thoughts are becoming erratic, his moods wild and unpredictable. Hollander catches him in a hallway and tells him everything and suddenly there’s so much more wrong than he ever thought.

Genesis sinks into madness and flees the place he’d called home, takes men with him - good men, men whose names he had almost known and whose faces he could almost remember - and turns them into puppets.

His brothers disappear less than a week later, gone without a single trace. Angeal tells him that over a campfire in Mideel, begging him to come back to help find them but he has to solve this problem before he tackles that one. Madness takes hold of him and he loses everything bit by bit, until he is a mere shadow of himself.

Occasionally, he thinks he dreams of them. He thinks he might hear of them, hear that they abandoned ShinRa to come find him. To join their monster brother, to laugh as they all rotted away to nothing… but they never come. Genesis kills his parents and destroys the town he grew up in, but they are not there. They’re no where.

That’s fine, he guesses.

They weren’t family anyway. Not really. He lets the degradation take hold of him and thrives on his own crumbling downfall.

Five years come and go and Genesis is truly alone. Zack has a puppy to care for, his hands are too full trying to clean up the mess that Genesis caused.

He hears the easy back and forth of familiar voices, the crunch of footsteps on the grass and looks up.

Nero and Weiss smile down upon him.

Their smiles are lacking something kind. Weiss lifts him gently, he doesn’t have the strength to speak. Nero hums, “He must have caused quite the commotion if they are deigning to send us to find him, don’t you think?”

"I wouldn’t expect any less from one who calls himself our brother."

"Ah," Nero says, "but he is not. Not yet at least.”

"I’m sure they’ll fix that soon."

"That is why we’re here."

Nero lays a hand against his cheek - his hands are cool, almost corpselike. There is something like a plea in his eyes, Genesis thinks, and slowly he drifts into unconsciousness. Nero’s soft voice chases him as he falls. “I can only hope that he will help us”


End file.
